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WITH DOUG JOHNSON

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469 Build Your House On Solid Rock

The sandstone at Lake Powell is an amazing and beautiful picture of the absolutely awe-inspiring creation of God.

But it is an incredible testimony to what Jesus said in Matthew 7.

Matthew 7 24 “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 

25 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. 26 But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.

In the time that we have docked our boat this week, rocks have been covered and they quickly erode into the water and fall away.  Even some of the ground that is walked on goes from stone to sand in the snap of a finger.

Why does no one have a house on the edge of this incredible body of water?  Simple answer.  The sandstone.  The foundation could be gone as quickly as the rising and falling water.  What looks to be stable and solid is simply able to fall and sink into the water so quickly that it is absolutely humbling.

And so it is with each of us … AND … with all of us.  

For each of us is it true as we, as individuals, must stay in alignment with the rocks of where we go and what we do and what we think and who we are … without these rocks we can lose our footing so quickly.

For all of us it is much the same.  In our groups both great and small it is easy to divide the group if we are not following the principles that will unite us.

Jesus modeled this in every way.

He modeled our individual situations as well as our group ones.

He modeled our lives in celebration and in absolute sorrow.

He modeled how to react and how to stay silent.

This is no easy word.

The storms of life can so easily sway us and knock us off course.

And finding the truth in the daily life can be difficult.

The truth, however, in the big things, is in your Bible, and your spirit connected to God, and in the counsel of a friend who will tell you the truth and not “support you just to steer free of the conflict”.

Build your house on solid ground.

Jesus is solid.  He is the rock.  He is the Living Water.  He is the Ladder that connects heaven to earth.  And He is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah.

You can’t pick a better foundation.

In The Name of the Father and the 

Son and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

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Coach J

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466 In The Blink Of An Eye

Anyone who is celebrating graduation today understands how fast it truly goes … 

1 Corinthians 15 52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 

We understand that life is before us … and then an era ends.  The door closes and can never be opened again.  And it ends so suddenly.

If this stings you, I want to convict you that this … is the what many call “the curse of Adam”.  We can define that in so many ways, but it is the true nature of what we live in when we are frustrated.  This curse makes work difficult, it makes marriage difficult, it makes parenting difficult, it makes dying and even birth difficult.  It is the ugly side of the coin and never to be confused with “how can a loving God do that to us?”.  It is not a loving God who turned His back on us … it was our penchant to choose and truly lives in the fact that we turned our backs on a loving God.

And, the enemy stirs up in us the desire to blame someone else, to which I would reply:  

Do not think that you didn’t do the same thing!  You too turned your back on God and wanted to do things of your own accord.  It is the reality of every man but one.

But God.

But God has given us an option.  And it is the only deal we’re going to get.  It is the offer of Jesus.  And the Jesus offer is the deal of the millennium.  It is the hope of all men.

Take it.

As Jesus told His disciples:  Follow Me.

Take that deal.  Follow Him.

He … is worthy of our surrender

In The Name of the Father and the 

Son and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Know anyone who might like these?  Encourage them to jump on to 2minutewarning.blog and hit the FOLLOW button!!!

Coach J

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464 The Biggest Lie Of This Age

I am shocked at the new movement that calls out the “hatred” in Christians.  

  • It attacks purity
  • It mocks obedience
  • It calls love hate and hate love
  • It is anti family and anti marriage

It is a shocking display of claiming to be the victim while acting as a perpetrator.

But it will never work.

Surrendering to Jesus is not a prison.  It is the release from that prison.

Surrendering to Jesus is not slavery.  It is the release into freedom.

Surrendering to Jesus is not without rules and convictions and structure.  But those are the very things that protect us.

We are God’s children.

Created in His image.

Living out a call that is so genuinely freeing that it is like winning the lottery.

Matthew 8 1 When he came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him. 2 A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”

3 Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately he was cured of his leprosy. 

 

Love … IS Jesus.

And this love will make us desire to make no demands of Him because we will want to follow.

He loves us in a way that no one can and releases us into a freedom that can never be substituted for a false narrative or a half truth.

It is the greatest love in the universe and the only hope for our survival.

This love is not to be taken for granted or perverted.

It is not to be changed or manipulated.

It is not to be distorted or compromised.

On the cross, on Calvary, 2000 years ago, He took the nails so that He could defeat the accuser of all mankind.  His accusations, his lies, and his hideous agenda will all be turned back upon him.  And there will be a day when he shames you no more.  The lion of the tribe of Judah guards his brethren … and He never forsakes them.

Don’t undersell or undervalue this love.

It is your only hope.

In The Name of the Father and the 

Son and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Know anyone who might like these?  Encourage them to jump on to 2minutewarning.blog and hit the FOLLOW button!!!

Coach J

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463 A Game You Can Never Win

Since 1993, I have had the pleasure of dealing cards at After Prom, the all night event at the school to give our kids something to do that can add to their prom experience.

It isn’t perfect, but it is amazing.  And it is something that is very fun to be a part of.

As a Blackjack dealer I have a great view of how the game works.  Though some students stack and win and restack and can break the bank, they don’t realize that even this move is impossible in a real casino.  They put a min and a max on each table with the numbers in mind.  In order to win a lot, they have set up the table so that you have to lose a lot.  No one can win and restack because they simply won’t allow it.

And the rest of the time?  It is a bludgeoning.  As the dealer, I deal and hit hands that break them and then square off against the survivors.  They win half of those encounters and I slowly move around the table and collect the money.

It is a “A Game You Can Never Win”.

Viewing his life, I have to wonder if this very thought went to the mind of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15.

Luke 15 12 The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.

13 “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. 

Sometimes we rebel because we are just wild.  And sometimes we do it so that we can get that BIG WIN.  And in doing so, we devalue our very being and squander our lives.

The perspective that “we can never win” is a real one.  The enemy has us trapped in a world where our future is painted in gloom.

No amount of money or fame or success or luck will change it.  Our future is sealed.  And all of us can see it.

But with Jesus?

We have the greatest future we could ever dream of.

Our lack of understanding does not change the reality of heaven:

  • Heaven will make this world the “dream state”.  It will be more real than anything that we see here.
  • Our senses will be heightened … tastes and smells … beauty … music … love … nothing will be comparable.
  • The government?  It will be ruled by the Savior of our soul and He will rule without rival or question — not because He is all powerful, but because He would be elected even if we did vote.
  • Money, Fame, Victory … all of these will be given to us in the highest measure–and yet no one will be on the losing side of them.

These things are known by Don Piper, who died and spent forty five minutes in the kingdom, only to return and tell his wife and kids that he “wished he was dead”.

Although I am glad that I have not told those I love that, I have to think that Don Piper experienced just a taste of what God has prepared for those who love Him.  

Do not entertain the thought that you are playing a game that you can’t win.  This is not how God has called you to live.

He also has not called you to live on the other side of that, conquering and winning in every arena … that leads to the same outcome.

The enemy has a plan for our lives.  And it is easy to get sucked into it.  His realm is a place where sons take inheritances while other sons sit at home bitter.  It is a place where living beneath ourselves is encouraged and then condemned.  It is a place where friends disappear when the money is gone and loyalty is replaced by comradery and an “us against them” mentality.

Let’s purpose not to do it.

It is a game we can never win.

Jesus said that He was the Way and the Truth and the Life.  Let’s do that.  It puts the ownership of winning on Him.

And He only loses when it redeems those He loves.

That’s a King I can follow.

In The Name of the Father and the 

Son and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Know anyone who might like these?  Encourage them to jump on to 2minutewarning.blog and hit the FOLLOW button!!!

Coach J

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461 Seeing It Before It Is

When an NFL player hits a crisis, it must be very hard to pull out of it.  The quarterback, in particular, is in the eye of the storm.  Surrounded by hostile grown men whose primary purpose is to bring pressure and physicality, the quarterback must face the hurricane and deliver in the biggest moments.

CJ Stroud is the new generation of men who “walk into the lions den”.  And he seems to know who he is and who he belongs to.  In every interview that I have seen, he thanks God through Jesus and plays for something bigger.  Bless him for representing.

The reason he is in those interviews, in my opinion, is that he has adopted another character trait that Jesus recommends:

“Seeing It Before It Is”

Some would call it Faith.  I call it FAITH AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL.

And Jesus knew this faith and taught this faith.

Matthew 16 13 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”

14 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

15 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”

16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

17 Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. 18 And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” 20 Then he warned his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ.

Jesus saw Peter.

He saw the plans of the enemy.

He saw the sins of men.

He saw the future.

Jesus chose Peter to build the church before he was worthy to be even a member.

And He sees what lies in front of you.

That’s a leader that makes the best NFL quarterback look like a Pop Warner back up.

And it is who we should be following as we navigate a rocky future.  Jesus Sees It Before It Is … He is worthy of my devotion and surrender.  He is the Christ … the Son of the Living God.  All praise and honor and worship to the God who loves us too much to let us go.

In The Name of the Father and the 

Son and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Know anyone who might like these?  Encourage them to jump on to 2minutewarning.blog and hit the FOLLOW button!!!

Coach J

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459 You Belong To Something Bigger

As I watched college basketball last night, I saw a commercial that convicted me.  Mike Krzyzewski said:

“You Belong To Something Bigger”

How prophetic.

I think that is the theme today.  “You Belong To Something Bigger”

We are sometimes trapped in a rat race that never ends.

We strive to complete our daily tasks and make our daily wage.

We chase after a security that will never come.

We desire to be immortal only to discover that we are brittle and broken.

Take a minute today and rest in the fact that “You Belong To Something Bigger”.  You belong to the Lion of the Tribe of Judah.  

This Jesus, the Jesus who carried His own cross to the hill on Calvary, He did it for you.

This Jesus, the Jesus who forgave the broken, He did it for you.

This Jesus, the Jesus who challenged the privileged in front of the broken, He did it for you.

And it was this Jesus who gave us these words:  “In this world, you will have trouble.  But take heart … I have overcome the world.”

Not long after this, He was betrayed, abandoned, brought before a mockery of a trial, beaten, sentenced, and executed as His clothes were gambled over by two Roman soldiers.  It was hardly the “overcome the world” that we wanted to see.  But it was the only thing that could possibly save us.

And He made it possible … So that we could Belong To Something Bigger.

As you read this verse today:

Revelation 19 11 I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and makes war. 12 His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. 13 He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. 14 The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. 15 Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. “He will rule them with an iron scepter.” He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. 16 On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.

Remember:  this was written by John after an ugly exile to Patmos.  It wasn’t the ending that he wanted for his life.

But he belonged to something bigger.

Bow before the Father today.

Commit your life to Him.

Let go of your thoughts and your theories and your vision for the way that you think life ought to be … and begin to press into what it truly is … a broken world that could never be right on its own accord, with people who could never be right on their own accord, ruled over by a God who made it right on His own accord.

Thank God that …

You Belong To Something Bigger

In The Name of the Father and the 

Son and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Know anyone who might like these?  Encourage them to jump on to 2minutewarning.blog and hit the FOLLOW button!!!

Coach J

1

457 The Cost Of Admission

I love reading this verse.  It is challenging to our culture in 2024 in so many ways:

Luke 16 1 Jesus told his disciples: “There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. 2 So he called him in and asked him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.’

3 “The manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I’m not strong enough to dig, and I’m ashamed to beg— 4 I know what I’ll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.’

5 “So he called in each one of his master’s debtors. He asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’

6 ” ‘Eight hundred gallons of olive oil,’ he replied.
“The manager told him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred.’

7 “Then he asked the second, ‘And how much do you owe?’
” ‘A thousand bushels of wheat,’ he replied.
“He told him, ‘Take your bill and make it eight hundred.’

8 “The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. 9 I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.

10 “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. 11 So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? 12 And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own?

13 “No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.”

14 The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. 15 He said to them, “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts. What is highly valued among men is detestable in God’s sight.

Many people view heaven and wonder:  “What is the cost of admission?”

What is the cost of admission?

We are short on our accounts and when the payment is due we will not have enough to pay it.

And then there is Jesus.  He shows up and cancels the debt for us and our entrance goes from impossible to certain.

This is a message to the believer and the unbeliever.

It is easy for a follower to say that “I have been doing this for years and because of that, I am going to the front of the line.”

It is easy for a newcomer to say, “I am not worthy.”  Or “I will go to the back of the line because I am not good enough.”

But this is not what Jesus says:

He says:  Welcome.  Enjoy your promotion.  Welcome to the family.

When we are in we are in.  And we are in because Jesus decided to pay the price of admission.

This message is not a good one to the individual who can buy everything or influence everything or overpower everything.  There will be no money great enough, no influence great enough, and certainly nothing powerful enough to push our God around.

I mean:  He owns the cattle on a thousand hills.

He equips shepherd boys with rocks to take down giants.

He shuts the mouths of lions.

And He will certainly stand in front of an army and be undaunted.

The concept of the Lion of the Tribe of Judah ruling over us excites me as much as it humbles me.

And He did, unequivocally, pay the price for our admission … and yours.

So when you sit in worship today … THANK HIM for that.

In The Name of the Father and the 

Son and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Know anyone who might like these?  Encourage them to jump on to 2minutewarning.blog and hit the FOLLOW button!!!

Coach J

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452 Stand Up To The Angry Mob

How did a homeless itinerant preacher change world history?

He stood up to an angry mob.

He had followers that were willing to stand up to an angry mob.  And He also had people in that angry mob “change teams”.

I am not often drawn to read about the stoning of Stephen.  But Stephen is quite a story.  While on trial, he calls out the very men who are accusing him:

Acts 7 51 “You stiff-necked people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are just like your fathers: You always resist the Holy Spirit! 

52 Was there ever a prophet your fathers did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him— 53 you who have received the law that was put into effect through angels but have not obeyed it.”

Stephen called the leaders Stubborn, Unfaithful, Disloyal, and Disobedient.

Not long after that, he was dead on the ground and his soul was enroute to heaven.

This is hard to read … and probably even harder to interpret.

What are we, as people, to do with this?

My answer, today, is I don’t know.

But here is what I do know at this small moment in time:

  • I know that Stephen stood up to an angry mob.
  • I know that one of the men in that mob who responded in anger had a RADICAL transformation, repented, and ended up writing books in the New Testament and advancing the gospel.  (Paul)
  • I know that because of this domino affect we are reading this Bible that we have today.
  • I know that we have moments in our lives that we might also be surrounded by an angry mob that calls for, and pushes people to, the very injustice that God has come to save us from.

Don’t buy it and don’t bow to it.

The God we serve died under this so that we would not have to be punished eternally by it.

And thank God for His grace.

John 3:16  “For God SO LOVED the world that He sent His ONE AND ONLY SON that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

So I finish with this:

Angry mobs are fueled and influenced by Satan himself.

So ……. 

Stand Up To The Angry Mob.

Don’t bow down to their philosophy or join them in their judgment.

Do not adopt their philosophies or entertain their temptations.

And do not judge others that they might be pointing the finger at.

They have no more right to judge than you do.

Judgment and Justice and Revenge … 

They belong to God … not man.

In The Name of the Father and the 

Son and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Know anyone who might like these?  Encourage them to jump on to 2minutewarning.blog and hit the FOLLOW button!!!

Coach J

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451 Recover What The Enemy Has Stolen

1 Samuel 30 6 David was greatly distressed because the men were talking of stoning him; each one was bitter in spirit because of his sons and daughters. But David found strength in the LORD his God.

It didn’t take David very long to lose the support of people.  The very people that he had rescued were turning on him discussing executing him!  This, to me, is unfathomable and yet it makes perfect sense.  People want all of it.  We are never satisfied with what we have … we always want more.  And, we probably don’t see it until we have been on the side where David sat in this verse.

Thank God … this is not the end of David’s story, or ours.

Our God is on an eternal quest to Recover What The Enemy Has Stolen.

And He has done so from the beginning, and on our behalf.

But how can this be done?  How can you make a covenant when someone continually and consistently breaks it?

God knows.

In Genesis 15, God makes a covenant with a sleeping Abram.  And why not?  You can not “cut a covenant” when the person that you cut it with can not and will not meet up to his end of the bargain.  So God cut a blood covenant with man through the only One strong enough to keep it.

God cut His blood covenant with man through Jesus.

And Jesus lived up to His end of the deal by dying on His end of the deal.

By His blood we are healed.

By His life we have life.

By His resurrection we can have eternal life.

By His perfection we can be sons … and daughters.

For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.  (John 3:16)

The enemy will always try to steal from us.  Sometimes he will win the battle.  Most of the time, he will lose.  And He can not win the war.  The battle belongs to the Lion of the Tribe of Judah.

And it is on Him that I stake my life.

He … is MORE than enough.

In The Name of the Father and the 

Son and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Know anyone who might like these?  Encourage them to jump on to 2minutewarning.blog and hit the FOLLOW button!!!

Coach J

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